The Cleveland Cavaliers are one of the worst teams in all of basketball. The struggles are not limited to just one area, they struggle across the board.
With a 14-40 record, the Cleveland Cavaliers have the second-worst record in the NBA at the All-Star Break. The only team with a worse record? The 12-43 Golden State Warriors who are without their two best players in Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. The difference between the two teams is that the Cavs are bad with their best players. This definitely is a contributing factor to the possibly impending departure of head coach John Beilein.
Scoring issues have played a prominent role
Cleveland is 27th in scoring this season with 103.9 points per game. This is almost 16 behind the NBA’s scoring leader Milwaukee. A contributing factor? The Cavaliers being 21st in field goal percentage (45.4) and three-point percentage (34.8).
The scoring issues have led to the having the worst plus/minus in the league (-8.9). Cleveland simply is unable to keep up with the better teams in the NBA and have ended up on the wrong side of some lopsided final scores.
What assists?
In regards to assists, Cleveland ranks near the bottom (25th) with 22.4 assists per game. Darius Garland leads the Cavaliers in assists this season with 3.8 per game. Kevin Love is second with 3 and Collin Sexton’s 2.7 ranks third. The team is not great when it comes to ball movement and their clear lack of assists shows just that.
More turnovers than a bakery
In addition to being flat out terrible at times in the ball movement department, Cleveland turns the ball over way too much. Some of this can be attributed to the youth on the roster (Sexton, Garland), although it is not entirely their fault. The Cavs turn the ball over a lot, second-msot in the league to be exact (16.4). The only team that has more turnovers per game is Atlanta with 16.6, a really bad game turnover-wise could see the Cavaliers end up surpassing the Hawks when it comes to turnovers.
The roster is not put together properly and that is very apparent
The Cavaliers roster construction is kind of a mess. It is essentially split right in two in regards to direction. Half of the team are veteran players who can contribute right now and their best days are not in front of them.
The other half is a group of players who need to be provided with ample time to develop. There are going to be growing pains and a lot of them. Players such as Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, and Kevin Porter Jr. have had their fair share of growing pains this season and will continue to experience them for the foreseeable future.
The timelines simply do not match. While the acquisition of Andre Drummond was great, it does not fit with their current trajectory in regards to their next competitive cycle. The Cavaliers will not be seriously competitive for what appears to be quite a long time. Acquiring Drummond was a win now move for a team that is far from it.
There is no easy fix for the Cavaliers struggles. Will a coaching change help? Possibly, but it needs to be noted that this team is far from perfect and really does not mesh all that well.
